


could we make it better, stormy weather?

by revelationtour



Category: Crashing (UK TV)
Genre: Mild Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revelationtour/pseuds/revelationtour
Summary: Sam and Fred take the day off.Some missing moments from episode two.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	could we make it better, stormy weather?

Sam wanted some quiet for a while.

The two of them stayed in the park long after the memorial service was over. Fred thought it insensitive to keep his half-eaten ice cream, so he tossed it out while Sam sat cross-legged on the grass.

Fred joins him, taking off his jacket and unfurling it onto the ground. He sits on top and wraps his arms around his bent knees.

Fred closes his eyes and tries to be in the moment. He takes in a deep breath, savoring the scent of the blossoming flowers and cool early spring air. Listening to the birds as they chirp in the trees. Hearing the pond ripple every now and again with the bouncing of insects and ducks.

And Sam, next to him, with his head in his hands. _Right_.

Sam is crying softly into his open palms, and Fred isn’t entirely sure what to do.

He learned at the party that Sam is the kind of person who has to open up for himself. Though Sam would never admit to it, Fred knows that he needs to tread around Sam with a certain delicacy. So, he keeps his distance — as much as he wants to reach out and physically comfort Sam. He purposefully makes his breathing steady and slow, creating a rhythm for Sam to follow once his tears subside.

Sam does slow down after a while. Fred notices his steadying breath, and even smiles a bit when he sees Sam picking at the clover in front of him. He relaxes a bit, legs outstretched, leaning back on the heels of his hands.

“Sam?” Fred ventures, hoping he hasn’t broken the silence too soon.

“Yeah?” Sam scrubs at his face with his hands, for what Fred can only assume is an attempt to hide teary eyes.

“Let me know when you’re ready to go, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

Fred watches as Sam bundles up his legs with his arms the same way he did, noticing how this is the quietest he’d ever heard Sam’s voice. He can’t help but feel a sense of privilege at seeing the loud and obnoxious Sam that everyone knows expressing the feelings that he kept bottled up.

“No rush. It’s a beautiful day,” Fred assures, tilting his head back and letting the sun warm him.

____

They walk home beside each other, but this time with Fred just a step ahead, leading the way back.

“He wasn’t even that good of a dad,” says Sam.

“I’m sorry.”

“Still sucks though.”

“It does.”

Fred fidgets with the wildflowers in his hands; small white blossoms that he picked up on instinct after he and Sam stopped for ice cream.

He hands them off to Sam, who laughs a bit despite himself.

____

They pop into the living area of their floor, Sam having remembered the broken shelf that set Kate off earlier that morning. He got to work on it quickly, which surprised Fred a bit, although he thinks fixing it could provide a nice distraction for Sam.

Sam is crouching underneath the shelf next to a rummaged-through toolbox, but still manages to keep the wildflowers relatively undamaged. They rest in his back pocket, and Fred is already internally cringing at the thought of Sam accidentally sitting down.

He’s holding the shelf in place while Sam hammers it back to the wall, when Fred catches a familiar figure passing by.

“Hey, Melody.”

Melody stops and turns to face Fred, and Fred comes to realize two brutal truths very quickly.

The first being that Melody is about to ask him about his pitch meeting, which he had discussed with her over dinner the other night, and which was once his biggest priority.

“Hey… oh, how was your… ah...”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter — ”

The second being that she’s about to mention it in front of Sam, who somehow became a much bigger priority than any business meeting.

“ _Non, non, putain_ … what’s the word? It was your big day, _non_?"

“No, no,” Fred insists, “it wasn’t even —”

“Pitch! How was your big pitch?”

 _Fuck_. Fred quickly catches Sam’s gaze and sees the stunned look on his face.

“Oh, um, it was… it doesn’t matter. I didn’t want it anyway,” he mumbles, trying to brush it off as calmly as he can.

“Hm. _D’accord_ ,” Melody concedes. She shrugs and walks away.

Sam opens his mouth to say something, but Kate comes storming around the corner and catches his attention instead.

“Hey. You alright?” Sam asks.

“Yeah.” Kate says defensively.

“Why are you wearing a hat?”

Kate huffs off without answering, pulling the hat down in anger. Fred and Sam share a glance and silently agree that it’s not worth worrying about.

Sam gets back to mending the shelf, and the two of them are stuck in a silence that Fred’s afraid of breaking again.

“Why did you come with me today?” Sam asks while in the middle of switching out tools.

Fred is left speechless. There isn’t any word to describe how Sam draws him in, unafraid of consequence and wrapped up in the thrill of his spontaneity, certainly not one that he could say to a person like Sam.

“...You didn’t have to do that,” Sam points out.

“No. But I wanted to,” says Fred.

“Suit yourself, dollface,” Sam says. He shrugs it off, but shoots Fred a look that feels a lot like thank you.

Sam carefully packs the rest of the tools into some old aluminum toolbox. He stretches up and pats the top of the shelf. “Alright. Nice.”

A sinking feeling fills Fred’s chest as he realises that his day with Sam might be over. Sam picks up the tools, but he hangs around for a moment too long, fingers twiddling along the handle of the box. It’s as if he’s waiting for something, but Fred can’t say for sure. Fred shifts in his spot, thinking up what he should do next.

Looking around the waiting room, he remembers a moment from that morning.

_Sam turns on the television in the waiting room as Fred takes his seat. The music of the opening credits roars to life, and Sam jumps over the back of the couch. He situates himself so that his back is up against the armrest and his legs are resting in Fred’s lap._

_"Trust me, cupcake, you’ll love this,” Sam promises._

_The movie plays on, and Fred checks his watch just about every five minutes, worried about leaving for his pitch meeting. He doesn't think it's too noticeable until Sam sits up and grabs his wrist, covering up the silver clock face._

_“Don’t worry about it too much, alright? It won’t hurt if you stay a bit longer," Sam says._

_Fred looks Sam up and down, realizing that Sam is almost sitting completely in his lap. His breath hitches at the closeness of it._

_“I… really do have to leave soon. But I’ve a bit more time,” says Fred._

_“Great,” Sam smirks, letting his touch linger on Fred’s wrist before letting go._

When Fred turns back to Sam, he sees him standing there beside Fred, with a half-smile — enough to give Fred the inkling that perhaps Sam doesn’t want the day to end either. He exhales, ridding the two of them of the awkwardness in the air, and reciprocates Sam’s half-smile with one of his own. For a moment Fred wonders if Sam feels this same thrill when he gets Fred alone.

“Do you want to finish that movie from earlier?”

____

Sam trails right behind Fred into his bedroom.

“You got a glass of water or something, mate?” Sam asks.

“Uh, yeah, I do.” Fred picks a mug that he left on his windowsill, and takes it to the bathroom to rinse and fill it. Wandering back in, he’s struck just a bit by the sight of Sam sitting on the end of his bed, holding the slightly drooping wildflowers that he pulled from his pocket.

Sam laughs at Fred’s stutter on his way in. “Take a picture, darling,” he mocks, “it’ll last longer.” He walks up to Fred and takes the mug out of his hands, tossing the flowers in. He props them back up on the windowsill. “Looks nice, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Fred says incredulously. He’s not sure he’ll ever understand what goes on in Sam’s head.

Fred stumbles over to his laptop resting on his bad, pulling up Netflix. He queues up their movie, which Sam insisted that he stopped “right before the good part,” while Sam tucks in next to him.

He likes the movie just fine, but he really prefers to watch Sam smile and laugh his way through it. Fred would do about anything to ease the hurt in Sam’s heart, he thinks.

But he still has things he wants to really know about Sam. He wants to be let in — he almost made it, at the party, and Fred thinks this might be the right moment to get his foot in the door.

Fred looks over to Sam, waiting for a pause in the action. “How... how did he die?”

“Duck attack.” Sam says with a straight face.

“Oh my god. Was that the pond where it happened?” Fred starts rethinking the day, believing that _he might have just stood in the spot where Sam’s dad_ died _and ate ice cream there like an_ idiot _and_ —

Sam chuckles to himself at Fred’s worry. “Ball cancer. Runs in the family, apparently.”

Fred breathes a sigh of relief, joking, “I’ll check yours if you check mine.” He laughs hard at that, not even because it was particularly funny, but because he was able to make Sam laugh too. He looks into Sam’s glistening bright eyes and feels like a little kid conspiring with their best friend. It’s warm and familiar.

Sam’s laughter starts distorting, though, and Fred turns back to him just as Sam starts crying again.

He hesitates. Fred couldn't give Sam space if he tried; he and Sam are already so physically close. Instead, he follows his instinct, allowing himself to try something new.

He drapes his arm across Sam’s shoulders, guiding Sam as he curls into Fred’s side.

“Thanks for today, Fred,” Sam says through his tears.

Sam relaxes and starts to realize what’s going on. Fred feels like a deer in headlights as Sam sweeps his gaze over his arm.

“Fred?”

“Yeah?”

Sam gestures to Fred’s arm around him. “This ain’t never gonna happen. Okay?”

“Okay,” Fred stammers. He slowly pulls his arm away from Sam’s shoulders, unsure of what to do with it. He decides to just rest his chin in his hands.

They spend the rest of the time watching in silence.

____

Sam falls asleep twenty minutes from the end of the movie with his head resting on Fred’s shoulder. Fred shuts the laptop closed as the credits play and shoves it to the end of the bed with his free arm.

He picks up his phone, first meandering on Facebook, and then clicking around some dating app or another.

Fred didn’t even like dating apps. He never thought they were for him, and yet.

Fred glances back down at Sam, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. He thinks about it — saying something to him. He could ask him about everything that he wants to know, be as reckless as Sam makes him feel, swing the door open to Sam and step in.

The trouble is that Fred knows Sam needs a lot more time before he can start letting people in for real. And Fred doesn’t want to wait around until he does.

Even with someone literally slouched into his side, there is nothing else he can think of that can keep him from feeling as lonely as he is in this moment.

His phone vibrates, and a new match pops up: a man named Will sent him a message.

Fred looks across the room to the wildflowers, now wilting in his old mug. He graces his fingers over where Sam had held onto him that morning.

Fred messages Will back.

**Author's Note:**

> yay! my first fic for crashing! 
> 
> title from "stuck in the middle" by MIKA. also, most of the dialogue in the second half is pulled directly from the episode, so all credit goes to the original writers.
> 
> thank you to julien for beta-ing!


End file.
